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Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg @theradr.bsky.social ⋅ 19d
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Hunter S Schafer @bolt451.bsky.social ⋅ 3d
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(he/him)
⚧
New game! BOLTED 
was she just holding those the entire time?
No, only when it’s funny.
SATURDAY Now there’s someone who knows how ‘tools work.
A baseball bat would have been even funnier.
Or maybe not.
My guess is that between panels three and four there was a small time skip, one where Joyce went to lay down and Sarah silently went to scoop those up off the counter to present to her. It’s just the comic that presents it in a comedic snapshot way.
Sarah is at any given time holding Joyce’s birth control, or not, depending on the quantum state of Sarah
I am entirely willing to accept that Sarah spent the last 12 hours holding the pill dispenser and soda bottle while glaring angrily at the door, waiting for Joyce to get back.
Sarah, as always, being the responsible older sister.
Deeply judgemental too, but nonetheless responsible.
Older siblings get to be a lil judgemental, as a treat.
Older siblings judge, younger siblings irritate.
It’s the natural order of things.
This is the way.
This is the way.
This has always been the way from time immemorial.
I always knew the way my older brother and I interacted was against the natural order of things. Now if only he would stop smoking outside my window….
I feel like this is the first time that Sarah has embraced her role as Joyce’s older sister. Not because she wants to or anything(tsundere,) but because she can’t help but worry about Joyce.
I’d say it was when she grabbed a baseball bat to fuck that guy who drugged her at the party.
Up. To fuck up that guy who drugged her at the party.
Man, that exchange gave me Hazbin Hotel flashbacks.
See, this is why I’d probably say “clobber” or “beat the stuffing out of”.
You meant “to fuck up that guy”, right?
Right???
Depends exactly what she was going to do with that baseball bat.
(Deadpan Anakin face.)
Away. Blow this guy _away_.
Kinda hoping next strip Sarah, as the responsible one, also points out that Joyce should really be carrying the pills WITH her in case she isn’t in their room at that consistent time she needs to take the pills….
I made this GIF like a year ago but what the hell XD
https://vxtwitter.com/i/status/1627174612126797825
So much drinking.
That’s a good sister.
“I fuckin hate him but I hate the idea of something bad happening to you more.”
“I’m Gonna Wash That Man Right Out Of My…..”
Mitzi Gaynor
“If I have to check in with you, you have to check in with me too!”
That STILL looks like Sierra Mist
Sierra Mist has been rebranded to Starry now. I think that’s Sprite which is probably popular enough to never rebrand and retroactively date the comic timescale.
Thought Sprite was in a bottle with a green label.
Sprite zero is in a blue bottle I think.
Sprite’s not going to rebrand, but it might switch up its label design.
They recently switched to colorless bottles just to mess with this comic.
It’s Sarah’s preferred form of carbonated beverage: Spite.
Crisp, sharp, and sour. Just like she likes it.
They also reformulated it to make it taste even closer to Sprite. It’s fine, but I liked the old real-sugar Sierra Mist.
Specifically because of a trademark battle with TikToker, Cierra Mist. Pepsico had to rebrand because they didn’t realize their trademark had expired and Cierra Mist bought it out of spite after Pepsi sent her a cease and desist for using her name.
I think there was a comic where Joyce has Opinions regarding Sprite versus other drinks, so you’re right.
Sarah finally embracing her life as Joyce’s older sister.
6% less effective on abstinence is still 100% effective……. IF it’s actually abstinence.
Yeah, abstinence is 100% effective if used perfectly. However, it’s also the least-perfectly used form of contraception, and one of the worst when ‘improperly used’. Also, let’s face it, missing her Pill is likely to leave Joyce open to the real reason she started taking it, and even 6% of that pain is something she’d probably like to avoid.
Given who pushes abstinence the most, it’s important to point out that their religion is predicated on abstinence NOT WORKING.
“Abstinence: 99.99999% effective¹”
[1] Note: abstinence is not effective at all since people have to battle billions of years of motivation to replicate.
Yep. Mother Nature has been getting this done a lot longer than there have been religions.
60% of the time, it works EVERY time.
In 7 cases out of 10, 9 physicians agree…
Worth noting started taking birth control to deal with unbearable cramps moreso than as actual birth control. 6% less effective is a risk of great pain regardless of any potential sexy times with Joe.
Not clear the 6% less would apply to that.
And would it be a 6% chance of the same pain or just 6% of the pain? 6% of the pain is probably not a big deal.
I don’t think it would but I think this is Joyce acknowledging that sex with Joe will happen when she’s ready, without acknowledging it aloud.
Yeah, that’s how I read it, too. Which (for her, based on her anxieties and where she seems to want to be) is some pretty positive growth.
(Nothing wrong with not wanting to have sex, of course! But, at this point, I get the sense that it’s primarily Joyce’s long-programmed anxieties which are preventing her from doing what she wants to do, and live how she wants to live.)
How something fails is a lot more important than how well it functions. If you were buying a car and it went just under the speed of sound and only needed a cup of water a year as fuel, but it has no brakes and it explodes at random times, would you really want it?
A car gets you from A to B with the implied so strongly it usually does not need to be stated result that at B you can safely exit the vehicle. If you have no brakes and need to whizz around until friction slows you down, the car has failed to perform its intended function.
Also that’s way too fast to drive. You can’t react at those speeds, even with brakes.
Our car has automatic braking so if somebody steps out in front of you it should stop the car and prevent a bang. The videos my husband showed me make me feel very anxious – the car stops about 6 inches from the crash test dummy on the pole. THAT’S TOO CLOSE BACK UP AT LEAST 3 FEET PLEASE K THANK YOU!!! (In practice, this is just an additional back-up and the person at the steering wheel should be braking a sane distance away, and extra safety features are definitely a good thing!)
A car that goes at this speed can only be safely driven in the middle of a perfectly flat, perfectly empty, perfectly straight, and very very long track. At this speed, a pebble under your wheel can be enough to ramp you up into the sky.
That said, I would still want the car, but not to actually drive it, or even turn it on — just to have a team of scientists and engineers find out how it gets so much energy from just a cup of water. ‘Cuz at this point it’s alien tech and we need to reverse engineer it.
Well said, someone.
Big fan of automatic braking assistance here. Right after we got our current car someone ran out into the road in front of me. The car was already slowing before I could react and my foot hit the brakes. Without that and whatever they call the brake micropulsing to prevent skids, it’s likely he would have been a statistic.
That pulsing is called antilock braking, it’s how expert race drivers do it, only superhumanly faster.
Annihilation, maybe?
6.33%, repeating of course
God damn it Leroy!:)
They gotta find a better method than downing an entire liter of (insert your favorite brand of lemon lime soda here).
I feel like the acid probably does bad things to the medicine, although I guess it’s all getting dissolved in stomach acid anyways
Common misconception – grapefruit interferes with a lot of medications, which is where the rumor comes from, but it’s not because of the acidity
Drug and food interactions can get… weird.
I need to take iron pills. It is recommended that I take them WITH a source of vitamin C (in my case I use apple juice) but with no other food (especially stuff with calcium). Other medication I have taken has to either be on an empty stomach, or taken with food.
Its a real art trying to optimally schedule meds around these restrictions.
I’m going to say that a 2 liter of soda every morning is going to do worse things to her than to the medicine.
Well Joyce was supposed to get used to it by using mini-m&m’s to practice, but that didn’t go very well. If she needs a lot of liquid to take it, go for a normal bottle or at least a 1 liter bottle instead.
At the very least, and this is speaking as someone who soda-drank himself into a Metformin prescription, she needs to swap with water or some other unsweetened beverage.
If it prolly wasn’t likely going to be uncomfortable? or more of a cost, maybe an IUD would be better in case you get so busy you forget a day but maybe they should start mixing stuff into food like becky and dorothy joked about once
That wouldn’t solve Joyce’s main problem, though: Horrifically painful cramps once every few months instead of just normally painful cramps every month.
Ha ha ha, get wrecked, panel 3 Sarah.
Has Joyce been ignoring her phone all night? She just have like 400 messages.
And that’ll just be from Carol….
Remember Joyce, one per day.
Of course! Have you seen how much a 2 liter bottle of fizzy sugar water costs?
Oh, I remember old reliable pills which you could miss a day or take a few hours late.
My current ones I can’t miss more than 2 hours or they’re rendered completely ineffective as birth control. Which is fine, they’re just bleeding control with as little depression inflicted as possible. My reproductive system seems to have decided that ovulation is for punks anyways.
I do love this interaction though, I forget sometimes how much I like Joyce and Sarah interacting generally.
Hey, just in case you don’t know, if you’re not ovulating (and therefore not having periods) and it’s NOT because your birth control is supposed to do that, then something is wrong. Unfortunately, there are more reasons to have periods than just to keep your reproductive system functional, and you should be having periods every 1-3 months even on BC. Otherwise your risk of reproductive cancers is increased.
Oh, I’ve already been to the doctor and gotten checked out as much as anyone was willing to. Unfortunately, I am genetically elevated for certain cancers, my main problem (appears to be) that I don’t ovulate and thus I will bleed to death if I’m not on medicine to keep me from ever having my cycle. Thank you for checking in though, I know some people get cross about such things!
Thank you – I was really confused as my experience was that the leaflet SAID skipping a few pills a month was fine if not ideal but then, I think I came off them in 2009…
They definitely worked – side effects weren’t great, but the cramping was reduced, the cycle length a bit longer than my natural rhythms, and I started them initially coz the periods were ruining my life. Also no pregnancies until a few years after I came off hormonal BC (I had the implant after, and it made my periods stop; took 2 years after it came out for them to resume, then 2 weeks for me to notice my 4th period was late with my first. My second and third were both conceived the same cycle we agreed we’d like to have another one at some point in the not-so-distant future, so it’s fair to say my natural fertility levels were probably “fecund” lol, and I was with my now-husband for years before coming off the pill…)
On one hand it’s nice that Sarah is still someone Joyce can count on to have her back. On the other hand it’s not healthy for for her to be stressing this much about Joyces whereabouts every time Joyce trys something different even if it’s understandable given all the dangers last semester.
Joyce went out drinking and then didn’t come back afterwards, I think Sarah had every reason to worry. Ill-regardless of everything that’s happened. Joyce didn’t have to tell her where she was going or what she was doing. But it would have been thoughtful to text, “I won’t be back tonight so no need to worry.”
I agree some worry is justified, the level of stress here however combined with her other over protective instances looks to me atleast to be an unhealthy level, more parent then big sister.
So this is how you worked in the unused strip. Smart.
“I spent the night at Joe’s and now he’s pregnant.”
“Well, you’re not sharing these pills, they’re expensive.”
Joe is totally ready to experience the miracle of birth.
Quick question–am I wrong, or is Joyce changing her clothes in front of a still-open door to the hallway? That’s pretty bold of her.
It’s habit forming https://www.dumbingofage.com/rethink/
I seriously hope she will use protection as well. Contraceptive pills don’t prevent STDs.
Joe always has condoms I’m hand pretty sure
Not sure if the same applies for Dorothy
There was a discussion just days ago of the long strip of packages draped over his desk. Though I think that’s as much Joe’s idea of many décor as of practicality.
you could be born with stds too tho, or have other issues (although i assume ‘pro’ actors get tested/the ones part of studio rather than amateur one but i notice in porn even when they use condoms they still go ‘raw’ for the BJs, so i guess depends on the disease)
“We didn’t do anything,” she says with her pants mysteriously missing.
Sarah is gonna need something to take the edge off, too.
AND as she doffs a Joe-sized Hawaiian print shirt.
It’s not a mystery, she knows where they are.
… underneath Sal.
Well, they _were_ Sal’s clothes in the first place. Joyce is just skipping the middle man and returning them as soon as possible. Really, if you think about it, it’s the sensible choice.
I know Joyce borrowed Sal’s shirt, but did she also borrow her pants?
(I figure she wanted the shirt to show off her cleavage, but her own pants would have been fine because, well, you want to show the curves but not necessarily show off skin.)
Yeah, I was curious about that, but it might well just be they got pushed out the door before she could grab her pants.
And before Joe could grab any of his.
i would think she should still take it daily to make it habit forming (tho i wonder if it’d also work or cancel out if they had do anything and she also took the morning after pill to be safe)
Unclear to me if this was supposed to be in response to the condom comment or if it’s supposed to stand alone, but for those who may be reading – birth control has to be taken every day (not counting the week of inactive pills) in order for it to be effective. “Effective” includes for both contraceptive as well as for period-regulating purposes (the reason why Joyce went on birth control). Just wanted to put that out there.
Condoms would constitute an extra layer of protection against pregnancy and the only protection against STDs. If, say, the condom broke, Joyce would still be protected against pregnancy (assuming she’d been taking the pill for at least 7 days) but not necessarily STDs. If she wanted to take the morning after pill it would be out of an extreme abundance of caution, not necessity, and it would not “cancel” out her birth control. She would continue to take her birth control normally.
Just adding onto Aubrey’s excellent explanation: the so-called morning-after pill prevents ovulation for a time, which only helps prevent pregnancy if you don’t already have an egg hanging out waiting to be fertilized. So depending on where you are in your fertility cycle, it may or may not help.
Generally, if you are already doubled up on contraception and you are using both of them correctly, you are already as protected from pregnancy as you’re going to get. And yes, it is entirely possible to use a condom incorrectly, actually.
isn’t the guy having a vasectomy technically better when you’re talking pure pregnancy?
Vasectomies can fail. And, I mean, a hysterectomy is even more effective, but that’s hardly the same category.
And a dude saying, “Don’t worry babe, I’ve had a vasectomy,” is very much not reliable birth control.
The only 100% reliable birth control is to never ever ever have sex or go near any semen at all. It gets exhausting when every time one of the other methods is mentioned, someone has to say “Well, that’s not perfect”.
Well, Dorothy’s methods rely on both partners having to turn their key at the right time, so she’s got it covered.
Doubling up on approaches is probably the best.
and only after verifying that the launch order is authentic.
“Where have you been?! Beds empty! No note! Car gone! You could’ve died!”
Hello Mrs. Weasley.
The pills reminder works a lot better coming from Sarah than from Dorothy. In the unused strip, it felt like Dorothy managing Joyce. For Sarah, it’s an extension of her worrying about Joyce’s well-being, and that’s more important to her than her loathing of Joe.
I guess the “97 days without a kidnapping” sign was foreshadowing Sarah’s panic here.
Panel 5: The Reverse Smile Vampire’s expression shows that she realizes that Joyce is happy.
Dude, hell yeah. Way to do the right thing Sarah. Don’t try to police who she sleeps with. Help her remember to be responsible when doing it!
What a good big sister Sarah is!
Personally it really bothers me when people act like this, especially if we didn’t agree in advance that checking in was necessary. I like being able to do my own stuff. But I recognize that these two have a different dynamic.
If you and your friends had been repeatedly kidnapped to the point there’s a sign on the dorm wall, and one of your friends got killed by a religious psycho and a mobster, AND you weren’t the sort to just disappear all night…
I would hope you’d have a little more empathy for worried friends.
It’s not about dynamic but precedent.
It’s definitely understandable for Sarah’s worry but still not necessarily a good thing for her or Joyce that she continues to worry to this extent. Even if its to be expected this soon after a traumatic event, it is an issue that should be acknowledged ideally with a competent therapist.
In my experience this is the normal amount of worry, especially for cohabiting young women with any kind of care for each other. I mean, I have an anxiety disorder so I might not be the best judge of “normal worry” but in all of my house sharing experiences sending check ins has been common to the point of habit.
Heck, first time I met my gf she picked me up from a friend’s houseparty late at night in her white van and took me to a second location and by the morning my phone had blown up from several friends seeking confirmation that I was still breathing.
Similar to how Amazi-Girl keeps tabs on people.
Which is… not the greatest thing in the world, either.
It’s fine.
If a friend/roomate doesn’t come home unexpectedly… its always good practice to make sure they aren’t dead or more importantly, in a situation where they could use the cavalry. Its even more important if you like doing your own thing because that’s how you end up as a cold case where the cops do nothing becuase “you’ll just show up in a few days”. You should have at least one person you can trust knowing when it would be weird for you to have disappeared.
I prefer a heads up generally just to make sure nothing bad has happened to you. Like even just a courtesy note or text would be fine that is vague like ‘got plans, won’t be back tonight/until morning’ would be fine. But if you were living with me, you better dang let me know somehow so I know I don’t have to worry or call the police to report you missing.
What the heck is Sarah holding?
Birth control and a bottle of soda since she knows Joyce is very particular about swallowing pills and needs basically a ton of soda to force herself to do it.
Ah. I was wondering what the soda was all about.
Is it just me or is Sarah somehow… cuter? More expressive? Like I just feel like there is something different in how she is drawn here…
She’s being open and vulnerable and not clenched into a perpetual Dealing With America stance, I think!
Yup, that explains it
She’s not giving her “Fuck off” scowl but her “I’m scowling because I love you” scowl
Totally different scowl, for sure.
Yes! Is this the beginning of seeing a more likeable Sarah? I am so here for it
what are you talking about? Sarah was always likeable.
God I hope so. She’s been kind of insufferable lately.
both of these gravatars are hilarious
On one hand, I fully understand Sarah being worried sick, not seeing Joyce coming back after the last news she sees of her is her being drunk and then nothing. But also, if she knew where Joyce had planned to go, it’s strongly possible she might have tried to interfere, so I can’t entirely blame Joyce for not keeping Sarah informed.
First Sarah takes care of little sis, then she and her pal Louis can go have a chat with Joe.
Or, in regards to that second bit, she can simply mind her own damn business. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Why so? Joe has behaved very well and will likely continue to do so. He has always behaved well towards Joyce, if not necessarily towards others… and tbh, apart from general implied sexual promiscuity (and we don’t REALLY know how much of that is actually true) he is quite a responsible character. He is well aware that his father is much less so. In his position I would have told Mike to Foxtrot Roger Oscar during the “yellow dress” date. If Sarah tries to dictate to him. I can see him telling her where to get off, and fair play to him
Imagine how it would look in the media now, a black woman assaulting a Jewish man on college campus.
Joe has behaved well.
But remember, when they first tried to date, Joe talked about “fixing” joyce (with his penis), and Joyce was quite miffed after the date.
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2011/comic/book-1/03-men-are-from-beck-women-are-from-clark/penis/
Yeah, we’ve seen enough of his change (and to a lesser extent how much his previous presentation was performative) to know that Joyce was safe, but Sarah hasn’t and it’s not at all unreasonable for her to not trust Joe in bed with a drunk Joyce.
Even early Joe might not have actually taken advantage of a drunk girl, but he gave that impression and no one should have trusted him.
Not to mention that alcohol and partying were involved so Sarah’s paranoia must have been stronger than normal.
Didn’t Joe say something along the lines of “not if they are drunk or crying” as part of a discussion of consent? Willis has always been careful not to show Joe as an actual rapist.
He did once, but not in front of Sarah.
Again, he was better than he presented himself, but he wasn’t great and he presented himself as a walking red flag.
One loose end about Joe… at one point he appears wearing whst appears to be Dina’s “boner” t-shirt. There’s an element of “magic sizing” here (although not really any more than Joyce wearing his shirt) but what was THAT about?
I think they just happen to own the same shirt in their respective sizes. Joe got it for the double entendre, Dina got it because paleontology reference.
Joyce is undressing in front of an open door, talking about her sex life, and brushing off assumptions about the status of her virginity? Who is this character and where is the neurotic mess we started with!
Too late for these pills, Sarah.
And the ”Ok, gimme”, Joyce is really considering using hahaha
I mean, they’re presumably the pills she was prescribed for her menstrual cramps. There was a whole storyline about it about two years ago. So she’s been taking them for about a week now.
And what’s about her in last panel? No problem in Joyce considering be more assertive in her meds because she’s wondering having sex.
They’re birth control pills, my guy. Which need to be taken daily.
This is actually very touching
All you had to say was “schedule” and “any% effectiveness”
I immediately went to assuming that Sarah was pulling out the chloroform and a rag before I registered that it was Joyce’s birth control. That would have been a funny gag
“Down the hatch! A quite curious phrase. Middle, South middle Victorian phase. It’s use is undoubtedly on the increase. I must work it into my next State of the Peace!” Jeremy Hillary Boob, PhD
I know I keep harping on it, but it’s kind of interesting to see how much Joyce has changed, throwing the shirt off like that with their door still open. Character development takes many forms.
We will now see Joyce chugging a 2 litre in her undies.
A bra has been conjured in panel 3.
I think she put her bra on before leaving, like we did see Joe stop to put a shirt on, so they weren’t THAT rushed. It was just hidden underneath the Big Boyfriend Borrowed… Blouse? (So close to 4x alliteration….)
This is actually a sort of progress for Sarah, really. I’m cautiously optimistic that no bones will be broken this arc.
poor Sarah, I knew this would be hard for her… it is true that Joyce should have let her roommate know she was spending the night with Joe, but I guess those kind of concerns might not come to mind when you’re drunk…
(the drinking part also might’ve been good to mention, depending on how late exactly that was; but once Joyce decided that she wouldn’t be back till morning, it definitely would’ve been the responsible thing to text Sarah. but again, probably harder to remember to be responsible when drunk.)
I love how Sisters they are. But real talk: if that’s one of those you have to take in the same one-hour time frame every day, they’re a pain in the ass. Incredibly effective from my experience (as both birth control and a lessener of painful cramps) but nothing compares to the sheer panic of going out with friends and realizing in the middle, “Oh shit, I left my pill at home and it’s time.”
slightly patronizing, but mostly sweet.
And she has a point, it’s shitty to just disappear overnight without a word if you’re the kind of person who doesn’t usually do that EVER.
So, is that “okay, gimme” as in “you’re right, I don’t want another killer period, thanks” or [sullenly] “you don’t trust me, do you”?
As in “I’ll be boning down soon enough and while we’ll definitely be careful if we’re both clean and in a monogamous relationship…”
I get why Sarah (and Amazigirl) would be nervous in all these situations that are going on but man
really feeling Jennifer’s comment about how Joyce has like three moms at college on those first two panels
Minus any friend kidnapped, assailant-with-a-knife, whole group kidnapping background events… this would STILL be a normal thing to worry about. There was one night freshman year my roommate didn’t come home without having said anything, and I was worried. We weren’t even close, but I still texted her to check. You add in a few basics like knowing your roommate grew up very sheltered and that she was out drinking for the first time, and I’d be pretty anxious about the whole thing.
(I would have expected a text between these two, though– if Sarah had texted and Joyce hadn’t responded, then that’s just more worry fuel.)
Where is Joe? Is he still wandering around in his boxers?
Yes, please, god, tell her that. She needs to know about the meds. Although some of them have a window for what counts as ‘late’. Mine is three hours.
And I think it’s sweet that Sarah was worried about Joyce.
OK, so, I wildly misread this comic, specifically the last panel, and I thought others might find it amusing, even though most people are past this by now.
My brain didn’t register what Sarah was holding, so when she says, “If not strictly taken on schedule, you lose 6% effectiveness,” I read the “you” as referring to *Joyce.* In other words that by Joyce disappearing and not being around Sarah, Sarah wasn’t “taking” her, and thus Joyce was losing her effectiveness on Sarah.
Brains are good at going to elaborate lengths to make things make sense.